George MacDonald’s Imaginative Writings
and their Impact on the Fantasy Works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis
Yasuko Hatano
Introduction
George MacDonald (1824-1905) is a Scottish preacher and writer, whose imaginative works shaped thefantasy novel as a modern literary genre, and influenced such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and C. S.
Lewis (1898-1963). He is best known for his fantasy books, The Princess and the Goblin (1872) and its sequel The
Princess and Curdie (1883). Inspired by these works that are set in the imaginary kingdom, Tolkien wrote The
Hobbit (1937), in which he partly borrowed the image of the “classic goblin” as depicted by MacDonald (TolkienOn Fairy-Stories 250).
This essay explores the potent mythopoetic images and traditional fairy-tale notions and motifs found in
MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, in order to examine the elements offairy-tales and fantasy as art that had an impact on Tolkien and Lewis’s fiction.
I Creating a New Model for Literary Fairy TalesI 1 Socio-Cultural Role of Literary Fairy Tales: Setting Standards for Socialization and Civilization
Originated in Italy, the establishment of the fairy tale as a literary genre was given momentum by Charles
Perrault (1628-1703), French writer and storyteller, and later, the Grimms, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm(1786-1859), German philologists and folklorist. Unlike Perrault who had the distinctive notions of civilité between
the heroes and the heroines (Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion 39-40), the Brothers Grimm paid morehomage to the original folktale (Zipes, The Brothers Grimm 103-04). Nevertheless, they also domesticated theyoung woman to make her worthy of a king, stressing the virtues of self-denial, obedience, and industriousness, all
the major qualities of the middle-class Protestant ethic and patriarchalism set the standards of civilization (Zipes,The Brothers Grimm 140-42 &103-04).
I 2 Fairy Tale as Subverting Traditional Socialization and Civilization
In her book Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, Rosemary Jackson categorizes literary narratives into themarvellous, mimetic and fantastic (26-37). She affirms that the world of fairy story belongs to “marvellous
narrative” and that it is “a form which discourages reader participation,” representing “events that are distanced
well into the past,” thus making “the reader merely a receiver of events” (33). Although Jackson draws thedistinctions between fairy tales and fantastic narratives, Jack Zipes argues that fairy tale has the close connections
to “the mode of fantastic” and the fairy tale discourse could “subvert traditional socialization” as the Germanromantics did “dissolve reader expectations” by “transforming familiar topoi and motifs into mysterious, symbolic
landscapes” that “lured readers to question the former secure worlds of conservative fairy tales and the real worldof their surroundings” (Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion 106).
The fairy-tale discourse underwent a profound change, primarily in Victorian England; George MacDonald
and several other writers are the ones who used the fairy tale as a radical mirror to reflect what was wrong with thegeneral discourse on manners, mores, and norms in society (Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion 104-05).
In his book George MacDonald (1987), William Raeper observes that the strength of MacDonald’s works is that he“allowed children to think for themselves” while reading his tales, and at the same time “fed them symbols which
would help them to master their inner experiences” (313).
I 3 MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin
In The Princess and the Goblin, MacDonald creates an imaginative world where the heroine is allowed to be
her own agent and curious and brave. It seems that the whole story is under the spell of Irene the princess’s
great-great-grandmother, who dwells at the top of the house. The heroine needs to be curious and courageous as a“true princess” (9; ch. 2). “Her curiosity” overcomes “her fear” and she opens the door very gently and peeps in(11; ch. 3). The top of the house constitutes the cosmology including the silver moon. Irene is led to the tower andgiven “a small ring and a ball of thread” by her grandmother, who tells Irene to “follow the thread laid on the rings
wherever it leads her” (82-84; ch. 15). The ring turns out to be that of Irene’s mother’s. Now that Irene has got thepower of the ring of her dead mother together with the ball of thread woven by her grandmother, she is “as brave ascould be expected of a princess of her age” (9; ch. 2) and saves Curdie, Peter’s son and a miner boy, who attempts
to discover the goblins’ conspiracy (67-68; ch. 12), but he is caught in the cavern by the goblins (92-99; ch. 18).
II Creating Fairy Tales that Invite Children’s Imaginative Participation
II 1 Reconstructing Mythopoeic Forms and Motifs

MacDonald thinks highly of the value of mythopoeic forms and motifs and in The Princess and the Goblin,there are motifs from Greek mythology, from the stories of Persephone and Ariadne, and classic fairy-tales. Headopts familiar images of mythopoetic forms and motifs as well as fairy tale conventions, and transforms themaligned with his own stories, appealing to the readership (Warner xxv). His works readily “invite an imaginative
participation in the meaning of his stories” (Raeper 313).
II 2 Tolkien’s Indebtedness to MacDonald’s Works: Goblins in The Hobbit
Tolkien’s indebtedness to MacDonald the idea of goblins in The Princess and the Goblin is obvious in manyways, but the distinction between goblins is apparent, as well. Like MacDonald’s goblins, they are cruel, wicked,
and bad-hearted and they can tunnel and mine and have a special grudge against Thorin’s people because of theancient war (57-63; ch. 4). More importantly, MacDonald’s goblins were originally humans and “very like otherpeople” but had “taken refuge in the subterranean caverns” (6; ch. 1). Tolkien’s goblins, who devour “horses andponies and donkeys” (57-59; ch. 4), are more monstrous and perilous than those goblins in The Princess and theGoblin. Tolkien’s borrowings seem very flexible. Thus, more features of the goblins as a foe of elves, dwarves, andmen are stressed in The Hobbit.
III Fairy Tales that are Instrumental in helping Children to Expand their Inner World

III 1 The Kernel of MacDonald’s Fairy Tale: The Musical Effect of an Aeolian Harp
In The Princess and Goblin, Irene is given a song from her grandmother: “[S]he could distinguish every word;
but of the sense she had only a feeling―no understanding” (124; ch. 22). MacDonald believes that fairy tales
should have an unconsciously musical effect upon the reader (McGillis, “Explanatory Notes” 354).
In the chapter 8 of The Princess and Curdie, Irene’s grandmother (she is also called the princess) began to singand her wheel spun an accompaniment to her song, and the music of the wheel was like “the music of an Aeolian
harp blown upon by the wind that bloweth where it listeth” (216-17). As The Princess and the Goblin unfolds
repeatedly the musical effect that cannot be grasped, the exchange between Irene’s grandmother and Curdie in thescene of The Princess and Curdie, shows, in a nutshell, MacDonald’s notion of what the fairy tale should be.
III 2 Lion as Allegorical Meaning in C. S. Lewis’s Work: Lewis’s Indebtedness to MacDonald
In the fantasy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) in the series of The Chronicles of Narnia(1950-56), Lewis sets Aslan the lion, the ruler of Narnia, at the top of the hierarchy in that world. Aslan stands forthe ruler, who plays a role of the scapegoat in the world of Narnia. As Irene's grandmother rules the world of ThePrincess and the Goblin by MacDonald, here in Lewis’s work the lion leads the world of Narnia. Aslan comes backto Narnia in order to fight back the White Witch, who has conquered the land and made it eternally in winter. Thelion symbolically stands against the evil power of the witch. Thus, the lion has a profound allegorical meaning thatforms the core of the whole story.
Conclusion
This essay explored the mythopoetic and traditional fairy-tale notions, forms, and motifs, found in
MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, in order to examine the elements offairy-tales and fantasy as art that had an impact on Tolkien and Lewis’s fiction.
MacDonald’s imaginative works allowed children to think of by themselves and fed them with symbols that
could be instrumental in helping them in the future experiences. He did transform conventional symbols that haveallegorical meanings in the stories, which he calls the musical effect. MacDonald influenced the two modernwriters, Tolkien and Lewis, to create more liberating fairy tales and fantasy works, who also make use of symbolsthat contain allegorical implications.
Works Cited
Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. Methuen, 1981.
Lewis. C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (The Chronicles of Narnia). HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2009.
MacDonald, George. The Complete Fairy Tales, edited by U. C. Knoepflmacher. Penguin Books, 1999.
---. The Princess and the Goblin and the Princess and the Curdie. edited by Roderick McGillis. Oxford UP, 1990.
---, editor. “Explanatory Notes.” The Princess and the Goblin and the Princess and the Curdie. pp. 343-61.
Raeper, William. George MacDonald. Icknield Way, Tring, Herts, Lion Publishing,1987.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. 5th ed. HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
---. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories, edited by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson. HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.
Warner, Marina. Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2018.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization. The
Routledge Classics ed. Routledge, 2012.
---. The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1988.